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Junior/Senior Year GPA Weighting?

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Junior/Senior Year GPA Weighting?

by mbaseekinggrad » Tue May 17, 2011 6:35 pm
Hello! I have a question regarding admissions committees looking at Junior and Senior year grades and weighting them heavier than Freshman/Sophomore year. I have heard this is very common and was wondering what consistency this practice may have at top schools? I also know that certain programs only consider upper level courses (UT-McCombs for example) and I am wondering if anyone knows a list of top schools that do this as well.

My experience in undergrad (and why I am interested):

Freshman/Sophomore GPA = 3.2 (got a bunch of C's my Sophomore year due to lack of maturity)

I then transferred schools to a top undergrad business program:

Degree Granting Cumulative GPA (Finance Major) = 4.0 (Summa Cum Laude, Top of Class)

If combined I would have a 3.7 GPA from all courses taken (took more credits after transferring).
Obviously there is a huge discrepancy in my performance which is why I am interested in the subject as well as how top schools (HBS, Stanford, Duke, etc) look at undergrad performance. Would I be an interesting case for admissions committees due to my improvement? Obviously there are a multitude of factors (GMAT, work experience, etc) but I am really interested in information regarding this topic.

Thanks for the help!
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by Linda Abraham » Wed May 18, 2011 8:22 pm
mbaseekinggrad wrote:Hello! I have a question regarding admissions committees looking at Junior and Senior year grades and weighting them heavier than Freshman/Sophomore year. I have heard this is very common and was wondering what consistency this practice may have at top schools? I also know that certain programs only consider upper level courses (UT-McCombs for example) and I am wondering if anyone knows a list of top schools that do this as well.

My experience in undergrad (and why I am interested):

Freshman/Sophomore GPA = 3.2 (got a bunch of C's my Sophomore year due to lack of maturity)

I then transferred schools to a top undergrad business program:

Degree Granting Cumulative GPA (Finance Major) = 4.0 (Summa Cum Laude, Top of Class)

If combined I would have a 3.7 GPA from all courses taken (took more credits after transferring).
Obviously there is a huge discrepancy in my performance which is why I am interested in the subject as well as how top schools (HBS, Stanford, Duke, etc) look at undergrad performance. Would I be an interesting case for admissions committees due to my improvement? Obviously there are a multitude of factors (GMAT, work experience, etc) but I am really interested in information regarding this topic.

Thanks for the help!
Business school admissions committees look at the whole package as presented through your entire application, but they are very interested in trends and anomalies. They also know that some people mature a little later than others and they realize that more recent performance is more indicative of who you are today than what you did when you were 18 and 19. If you hit your stride and really showed what you can do in the last two years of college, they will weigh those last two years more heavily.

Obviously I don't have enough information to evaluate your profile, but what you present above doesn't preclude you from applying and getting accepted to top MBA programs -- provided everything else is competitive and compelling.

Best,
Linda
Linda Abraham
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